Apologies
by B00k Freak
Summary: Post-Finale, May is shutting Skye out. Skye decides to do something about it. Spoilers for teaser trailer for 221/2, mostly speculative and vague.
1. Chapter 1

It had been weeks now since the whole debacle with Afterlife. Weeks.

May still wasn't talking to her.

Skye knew that the woman was stubborn, and she knew that May was rightfully hurt. But _weeks_ of the silent treatment, and the only time May met her eyes was when they had a mission. Skye couldn't even find her half the time, and any attempts at apologies were met with the back of May's head.

She missed training. She really really missed training.

And she couldn't sleep. Skye rolled over and looked at her phone. Three AM. She sighed. Sleep would be nice but really, it wasn't going to happen.

She climbed out of her bunk and donned her workout clothes on impulse, going down to the gym. She really missed training, but tai chi alone would have to do.

There was no one around, which Skye should have expected at this time. She entered the gym and flicked on the light, smiling at the familiar sight. She pulled out the mats, took a deep breath, and began her usual routine, feeling the smoothness of her movements. If she concentrated only on that, it almost felt like before.

Skye wasn't sure how long she performed her tai chi, moving from one form to the next, wishing that May was there with her.

Then she turned, and she was standing in the doorway, watching her.

Skye stopped, surprised. "Sorry," She said, even though she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. "I- if you wanna train I can go." She wanted May to forgive her. At this point she would do almost anything.

May looked at her for another second, then left without saying a word.

Skye wished for the time when she could have called May's expression blank. Many would say that it was. But it wasn't, not to her. Skye could see the sadness, the broken way she looked at her, the way she was an inch from tears.

She wanted to make it better. "May-" She ran out after her, but May didn't stop.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Skye had first thought that May was doing this as some kind of punishment. It seemed like her kind of thing to give someone the silent treatment. But then she noticed the way Coulson kept watching her, and realised that it wasn't.

Then she noticed the dejection that hung around her and realised that this wasn't something May was trying to do to _her._

The way she subtly changed her stance whenever Skye entered the room was another one. It was tiny really, the slight twitch of her shoulders, but something about it reminded Skye of a puppy with it's tail between it's legs. She later amended it to a puppy who had just been hit over the head with a newspaper and was trying to avoid a second blow.

It broke Skye's heart. She had driven her away. Hurt May so much that she receded into herself, hid. From everyone. She wanted to undo it. "You seen May?" She asked Coulson, for the third time that week, and he shook his head.

"She wants to be alone Skye. Everyone needs time to themselves sometimes."

 _The hell they do._ Skye thought. _Everyone_ wasn't looking like they were about to jump off a bridge. Rather than actually look, which was time consuming and unfruitful, Skye sent a pulse through the base, the various presences bouncing back to her like ships on a radar.

The roof. Really? The _roof?_ Skye shrugged and ran off to find May before she found somewhere else to hide.

It was dark, and the wind sent a chill through her bones. "May?"

The older woman was standing towards the edge of the building. Her head turned slightly at the sound of Skye coming out, but as usual she said nothing.

Skye bit her lip. She knew that she had done a pretty good job of screwing up whatever kind of friendship they had, but she wanted to salvage anything she could.

May sighed and slumped a little, not facing the younger agent.

Skye was seized with a sudden frustration with it all. "Just- be angry with me! I hit you, I-I did _everything_ wrong!" She grabbed May by the shoulder, pulling her around to face her. "Yell at me, for the love of God! Hit me back!"

May broke Skye's grasp with the same ease she always had. Skye could see that she was biting the inside of her lip to stave off the tears that were just beginning to fall, but before she could say anything May walked past her, back inside.

"Damnit!" Skye swore, and the roof shook slightly in response to her frustration.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Skye had gotten to the point where she didn't even care whether or not May would forgive her, she just wanted to start acting like herself again. She missed her SO like a hole in her chest, and every time she saw May shambling around just twisted the knife further.

She managed to corner May in the corridor to the gym, following her in. "Will you please just let me talk?!"

"Fine." Her voice was tense, and she turned to face Skye for the first time since Afterlife. "Talk."

Skye had half a dozen speeches planned, but she was so surprised at actually being spoken to that she couldn't talk for a moment, eventually stuttering out an, "I-I'm sorry."

May didn't move or react, and Skye found the words to continue. "I-I was wrong, and I was horrible to you, and I shouldn't have done any of that, just- please... can we be friends again?"

May stared at her for a long time, her jaw clenching. "We were never friends Skye." She said stiffly. "It was my job to protect you until you could protect yourself. We both know you don't need me anymore, so just call it a day."

Skye was frozen in place, stunned at the words. She knew that they were meant as a defence mechanism, to push her away, but they still stung. "May..."

The older woman looked away. "I appreciate the apology Agent Skye, but it's not needed."

"Please..."

"You should go."

Skye left fighting the burn of tears behind her eyes. It hurt so much there was an ache in her chest that wouldn't go away. But there was one more thing she had to say, so she turned around, a couple of the tears escaping.

"She wasn't." She said in a choked voice, and May turned from the punching bag. "Jiaying, she wasn't everything I wanted her to be."

She spotted the subtle tremble to May's shoulders, but she managed to keep her face blank.

This was more than Skye could do, since she could hardly get the words out between tears. " _You_ were everything I wanted my mom to be, before I even knew who she was. You kick my ass when I'm wrong, and you pretend you don't care when we both know that no one cares more than you do."

May's mask was cracking, but she refused to look away, knowing that to do so would mean admitting that Skye was getting to her. Admitting that every time she had imagined what her daughter would have been like, she imagined Skye.

"You might not think that we're friends, but we are family, so you can't get rid of me, and I'm gonna do anything I can to make this right. If you want to fight me to get it all out in the open then just get on with it."

May was silent for a while, torn between arguing and staying away. The arguing won out. "I don't actually enjoy hurting people Skye." She said softly.

"I hurt you." Just as softly.

"And you enjoyed it?" Skye looked stricken at the suggestion. "Just go, Skye. I was never your responsibility, and now you're not mine either."

"I'm not going to do that." Skye knew that there was no magic solution here. But she had first gotten through to May by sitting with her in the cockpit. Their plane was gone now, but Skye was going to make this better. "Train if you want, I'll just sit over here and watch." _Until you ask me to join you._

Maybe May wouldn't speak another word to her today, maybe not even this week, but Skye would get up at their usual time anyway, and sit and wait and hope that her SO could become that again.

Because Skye knew that May was wrong. She did need her. More than ever.


	2. Chapter 2

Skye sitting in on May's training seemed to be her new thing. Every morning she would arrive to the gym, closely followed by the younger agent, who would sit by the wall and watch with her large dark eyes.

May didn't know how to communicate that Skye didn't have to do this, any of it. She knew that Skye felt bad for hitting her, and she would admit that she packed a punch, but she had told Skye that it was okay, that she didn't need to make it up to her.

They weren't friends.

That thought was the one that consumed her, that had consumed her for over a month. Skye didn't need to apologise because she hadn't done anything wrong. She had been trying to protect people she cared about, and she had. Protected them from her.

Skye had tried to backpedal, to explain, claimed that May was more of a mother to her than Jiaying had ever been, but it was too late. Melinda hadn't noticed how close she had gotten to Skye. Now she had, and she needed to stay away.

But Skye wouldn't let her.

She followed her to training, tried to sit beside her when she was doing work on the couch, brought her tea and food with a smile so bright that Melinda could almost fool herself into thinking was genuine, but she could never forget how much it all hurt.

Losing Skye hurt too much, so it was best to not get attached again.

But for some reason Skye felt responsible for her now, and she wouldn't accept any of the brush-offs that May threw her way.

It hurt when Skye said she was dangerous, but it was true. She was dangerous, people feared her. Skye knew what she had done in Bahrain, so of course she didn't want May to teach her anymore. She didn't need to apologise for that. Melinda had made her farewell, wished Skye her best, and moved on. That was how she worked.

But the world had other ideas, and had sent Melinda in to find the SHIELD agent who had been captured. When that happened she found herself again fighting a powered girl she had wanted to protect in the attempt to do her job.

Melinda didn't know why she let herself think these thoughts in a common area, and she cursed herself, trying to wipe the tears away with the heel of her hand, only to have them replaced with more.

As if on cue, her shadow appeared, face falling at the sight of her. "May..."

Skye hurried over and tried to hug her, but May shoved her away so forcefully that she fell off the couch. Without missing a beat, Skye curled up on the floor beside her, resting her head on May's knee.

Melinda clenched her fists, trying to stop this. She needed to push Skye away, she needed to stop caring about this girl, but a weak part of her couldn't help but want her there. The silent tears wouldn't stop and May took deep breaths to keep it all in, forcing her muscles to relax and the tears to abate.

She didn't notice when her hand had started gently stroking Skye's hair, but the way the girl leaned in to the touch was not lost on her. _Damnit_ , she was trying so hard to stop caring about her, and she just couldn't do it. "Why do you keep doing this?" She whispered, not really intending to articulate it.

Skye shifted slightly, leaning in closer. "Because I love you. And I screwed up." It was so much easier to say this stuff when May wasn't looking at her. "I was looking for my parents for so long, it's the first thing I ever wanted. Then Cal was a psycho, but Jiaying... she was so nice, and so... perfect, she was too good to be true." She really was. "And I came back and saw you again, and- I was _furious_ with myself." She heaved a sigh. "I found this gift-wrapped perfect mom, she was textbook, everything I wanted."

Melinda was receding in on herself again. Skye was right, Jiaying was good for her. Better than she had ever been.

Skye kept talking. "And I came back, and I was so _happy_ to see you again. I kept thinking, this was my family- here, with all of you. And I'd been trying to find my parents for my whole life, and I was so _angry_ with myself that they weren't what I really wanted." She would have hugged May if she could. "I was angry that I loved you all so much, and I took that out on you. I'm so sorry, May."

She had just _stopped_ crying for Gods sakes. "You don't have to be sorry." She said in a choked voice. "You never lied."

"You're not dangerous." Skye said with such conviction that Melinda almost believed her. "You're skilled. It's not the same thing. I should never have said that, I shouldn't have brought up Bahrain in front of Coulson, I shouldn't have rubbed it in your face, I shouldn't have hit you, I shouldn't have acted like you have no reason to care about me, but that's all on me, got it? So stop acting like you think I was right."

This was concrete proof that Skye knew her too well, because that was exactly what May had been thinking, what she had always been thinking. She had told Phil what had happened to drive him away too; it had worked with Skye. They didn't need her. Tell the most important people in your life about the most despicable thing you have ever done, and they will leave. It had been Melinda's failsafe, the easiest way for them to understand why she didn't deserve them.

The best way to shut people out.

But it didn't, for whatever reason. Skye was following her around every second she could. Phil was giving her more space, but he made sure she was eating, and she saw the look in his eyes sometimes, one of concern and compassion, not of rightful disgust.

Melinda didn't understand it.

Skye seemed to read her mind. "What if it was me?" She asked. "What if I'd been in Bahrain instead of you, and I'd..." She didn't want to say it.

"You wouldn't do that." Hollow, but true. Skye would never hurt a child, not like she had.

"I might have. I don't know." Skye mumbled. "But forget what you think I'd do, what if I _had_? Would you hate me?"

That was a low blow, and May didn't reply. She didn't want to think about Skye being in her place in Bahrain, because it too easily became Skye taking the little girl's place instead, and she had had that nightmare too many times.

Skye knew that not replying was tantamount to admitting that she was right. "I'd rather you hate me than yourself; I'm the one who screwed up." Skye squeezed her eyes shut. "But I need you, I-I... I can't keep going without you, I'm not that strong." Quietly, trying not to cry. "I can't lose anyone else." Because she was losing May now, and Skye knew that it was her own fault, but she was trying like hell to fix it and she _couldn't_ , and that broke her heart.

May shifted and Skye's heart dropped through the floor. She had done it again, and now May was leaving, again.

To her surprise though, Melinda only moved forwards in her seat until she slid down out of it and was on the ground beside Skye. She was even more surprised when May pulled her into a hug.

It was mechanical and awkward and stiff, but Skye returned the embrace so tightly that she knocked the air from May's lungs. This wasn't what May usually did , and it meant _so much_. Skye buried her head in the crook of her neck and felt May sigh softly, though this time with an edge of contentment. "I can't get rid of this Skye." Any of it. How she was feeling, even if she had forgiven Skye for what she had said. What she had done in Bahrain could never be undone, and Melinda would never forget it.

Skye only hugged her more tightly. "I'm not asking you to." She mumbled. "Just... let me help, please. You help all of us and you never want anything back, you can let us in." When May made no reply, she continued. "I love you, we all love you, and whenever you need us we'll be there."

"I love you too." It had been over seven years since those words had passed her lips.

Skye knew how much those words meant, especially coming from May. "Don't push us away anymore, okay?"

"I'll try." She said, catching the inside of her lip between her lips and working it back and forwards. It was hard. It was hard to admit this truth.

The truth was that Melinda loved her team.

The truth was that she was scared out of her mind of losing them.

But the truly terrifying truth was that they really were a family.


End file.
